I am speaking of the economic battles states and localities wage against one another when they compete for new businesses via economic incentives such as tax breaks, regulatory exemptions, or taxpayer funded grants and loans that are offered only to specific companies.

Are there any solutions? I suspect not, as the states haven't been able to restrain businesses for the sake of the community.

Had a follow-up appointment this morning for a wound check. Doctor thought I might have broken my toe, since there was a lot of bruising. She didn't dress the wound though, so the nurse who talked to me afterwards was surprised that I didn't have one. Of course she put one on immediately...

Step Up For Your Country
The general who led U.S. forces in Afghanistan makes the case for national service and the ‘basic responsibilities of being an American.’

I don't have anything new to say here. I don't see National Service as being compatible with true relocalization efforts. There can be a "national," that is nation-wide, mobilization of young people to learn new skills and promote sustainable living in their communities, and if such knowledge does not exist there, then they can go to other areas to learn it. But having another bureaucratic machine at the "Federal" level? I say no.

He should have stuck to the Army. I hope he's not thinking of running for office.

As a member of the ACLU, I look to that organization for the legal defense of our enumerated rights. The ACLU does stand up for the enumerated civil liberties spelled out in the Constitution. However, reading the current issue of the ACLU newsletter, I found myself wondering if the ACLU is unconsciously contributing to the public’s indifference and hostility to civil liberty. The newsletter’s list of legal highlights for 2010 presents the ACLU’s activities as being concentrated in efforts to legalize homosexual marriage, to protect abortion from curbs, and to end the promotion of religious beliefs in public schools.

These are all issues that infuriate conservatives, and these are the issues that conservatives identify with civil liberties. Therefore, much of the public is not the least bit perturbed to hear that civil liberties are under attack when many understand civil liberties to consist of criminal rights, prayer bans, abortion, and homosexual marriage. This is dangerous, because in the public’s mind, civil liberty can easily morph from procedures that coddle criminals into procedures that coddle terrorists. Should this occur, all would be lost. Defense of the enumerated rights would become “giving aid and comfort to terrorists.”

It is not my purpose to argue the validity of the ACLU’s position on abortion and homosexual marriage. I am sure that the ACLU is convinced that homosexual and abortion rights are somewhere in the Constitution, but they are not enumerated rights, and the conservatives know it. When the Constitution and Bill of Rights were written, I don’t know if abortion and homosexual acts were the statutory offenses that they were during much of my lifetime, but they were not socially approved behavior that the Founding Fathers thought worthy of constitutional protection. The separation of church and state means no state church or taxpayer support. It does not mean no prayer in public schools. Ironic, isn’t it, that today with faith-based initiatives we have taxpayers’ money going to religious institutions, but no prayer in school.

When the issue is raised that perhaps the Constitution like common law can change as people’s mores change, conservatives reply that if the Constitution can change, anything can be put into it or be taken out, such as the civil liberties that I am complaining about Bush taking out. As for abortion and gay marriage, these are things that conservatives think activist judges and the ACLU put into the Constitution. Strictures against abortion and homosexuals should have been overturned legislatively, not by inventive interpretations of the Constitution.

The unintended consequence of the judicial branch exercising the legislative function in the name of constitutional rights has been the alienation of a large percentage of the population from civil liberty concerns. Today much of the population views the ACLU as a threat to society comparable to terrorism.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

I had decided not to see a doctor about my back pain (which has disappeared, for the most part, though I still feel tired from time to time if I stand too long) and thus I avoided filling out paperwork and starting the process to get some assistance from the county. Well, tonight I had to go to Valley Med anyway, because I cut my right index toe when I walked into the metal bookshelf in the room, after I had lost my balance trying to get out of the room. 8 stitches. Sigh. I also met a high school classmate in the ER; he was the physician in triage screening patients.

An affinity for tree groves
Gene Logsdon, The Contrary Farmer
My thinking, even in the early seventies was that I wanted my own source of fuel and in my mind, that meant some established woodland so I could commence staying warm immediately.

Downton Abbey--the second daughter and the radical Irish chauffeur are proponents of women's suffrage... I do find all of the "progressive agitation" annoying. After all, who is made out to be the villain? The Dowager Countess of Grantham, played by Maggie Smith, who is a stubborn obstacle to change but made to seem a fool holding on to privilege and the old ways, for the most part. I wouldn't support the ways of the aristocracy, especially as it had been transformed during the rise of the modern nation-state, but that doesn't mean I have to adopt liberalism as a solution.

Liberals may hold on to their radical egalitarian fantasies, but nature will win out.

He writes: "I am pleased to report that the course has enrolled all the transitional deacons and those scheduled to be ordained transitional deacons, as well as two Dominican priest auditors."

I will have to ask Br. B if he is taking the course.

He also adds:

In addition, I am pleased to announce that the monthly celebration of the Dominican Rite Mass for the students of the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology (Arch and Vine Streets, Berkeley CA), shown in the photo to the left, will be continued this spring. This Mass was instituted in fall 2010 at the request of our lay students, and the strong attendance by both lay and religious students makes it likely that the number of celebrations will be increased to more than one a month. It has been offered by Fr. Anselm Ramelow, O.P., but we expect to add additional celebrants. I will announce the days and times when they are set. DSPT has been drawing large numbers of new lay students for the M.A. programs in both philosophy and theology and this is one of our responses to their spiritual needs.

That's the first I've heard of it; I'd like to go out to the DSPT despite the distance. It would be great if it were celebrated somewhere closer.

I won't be watching the State of the Union Address, and I may not even blog about it, as I haven't finished my post on Obama at the Tucson memorial. But here is Jerry Salyer's "Much Ado About Inflammatory Rhetoric."

VFR: "And that is an example of what I would call a rational and practicable approach: not trying to remove Obama from office, but putting proper procedures in place which, if he did not conform to them by producing proper documentation, he couldn't run for re-election."

There is no way the franchise can be restricted, so long as the current political economy exists. Certain bishops may talk as if they accept universal suffrage, but this is not part of Sacred Tradition. To offer everyone the right to participate in governance without the relevant moral considerations goes against distributive justice. But liberal democrats will have none of that.

Yesterday, I was thinking about myopia (since I am personally affected by it). It is often explained away as being part of a genetic inheritance, but is there more to the story? Is diet (in or out of the womb) a contributing factor to its occurrence? Wikipedia mentions the lack of sunlight as a possible contributing factor.

Chinese people appear to be severely affected by myopia. (Is the incidence high in other East Asian countries as well.)